


The Weasley Family Picnic

by Antosha



Series: Burrowing [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adolescent Sexuality, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Het Relationship, F/M, Femslash, Fivesome - F/F/F/M/M, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Masturbation in Bathroom, Metamorphmagus Sex, Multi, Post-Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Romance, Teen Romance, flangst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:15:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23726692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Antosha/pseuds/Antosha
Summary: Things are very busy at the Burrow tonight... (After the Trio's sixth year--written pre-HBP)
Relationships: Arthur Weasley/Molly Weasley, Fleur Delacour/Bill Weasley, Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Katie Bell/Angelina Johnson/Alicia Spinet/Fred Weasley/George Weasley, Nymphadora Tonks/Charlie Weasley, Penelope Clearwater/Percy Weasley
Series: Burrowing [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1708984
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	1. Burrowing

"I'm cold," Harry says, his voice trembling as his hands do, running through Ginny's hair.

"You look terrified," Ginny giggles.

"So do you."

"That's because I am, you stupid git," Ginny sighs, and kisses Harry, her tongue snaking across his teeth as she presses her all too naked body against his.

Harry can feel her nipples, hard and cool against his chest, can feel his cock throbbing against her pubic hair, can feel the dampness of her cunt--damper for liberal amounts of his saliva--against his thigh.

Possession. That is the only word for it. He feels possessed by her, and possessed by his own desire, as if there were a voice howling from between his legs to take her, to press into her, to impale her, to ravish her, whatever the hell that means.

He pulls himself back and looks into her squirrel-black eyes. "If you're scared, Gin, we don't have to... I don't want to make you..."

She squeezes her long, thin fingers around his cock, stopping the tumbling words and bringing a low moan in their place. "I want to make love with you, Harry." She knows possession too, and feels it--feels possessed and in possession, both at the same time.

He moans again, because no words suffice. He starts to shift his weight over her. To stop a new round of trembling, he kisses her, hard. Her pubic ringlets tickle the length of his aching cock, and he breaks the kiss to catch his breath. "How do you want to?..."

"Lord, Harry I don't know... I just... I..." She looks around her little-girl-pink room, to where Uni the Unicorn is resting on a pillow in the window, horn scuffed but proud, and something fluttering halfway between terror and joy threatens to choke her.

"Shh," Harry says, both for Ginny's sake and his own. Almost of its own accord, his cock presses against her open lips.

"You did the charm?" she whispers.

He nods. Ron had taught it to him, very carefully, very seriously, very unlike Ron--said it had worked for Bill and Charlie, and the twins, and for Ron, too, and that he didn't want to be Uncle Ron any time soon.

"Here," Ginny says, wrapping her fingers around the length of him again, this time gently pulling him down to the opening of her cunt. A soft laugh escapes her lips. "You know Veronica Tallent?"

Harry's eyes are wide, as if staring over a cliff-edge. "Slytherin... Your year?" he hisses.

Ginny smiles, the knowing, wicked smile. "She's been calling me 'Vagina' since first year. Haven't had the heart to tell her... my name's not Virginia...."

They both laugh, and, for a moment, the shivering stops. Ginny wraps her arms around Harry's neck and her legs over his hips.

The pressure of his own desire and of her feet on his ass drive Harry into her--just a few inches but enough that the flare of his cock spreads the tight ripples of her not-Virginia.

They each let out a cry--why does if feel different than a hand, a finger? It just does. Feeling such as this has never been felt. And has always been felt.

She cries out again.

"OK? Gin?" he grunts, holding still, trying desperately not to do what his body wants so badly to do.

"I'm fine, Harry." His eyes, so green and deep, without his glasses she feels as if she's discovered an ocean no one's ever seen. "Gods, I'm fine. Oh, _fuck_ , yes," and their bodies find their own dance, as if they had always known what a pelvis was for, even if their brains had managed to forget.

As they rock and squeeze together, Ginny weeps into his neck, feeling herself open to him in a way she had only thought she could imagine.

Soon, too soon, his thrusts grow quick and he feels himself trembling again, though not cold, and he wails, "I think I'm going to  
  


  
  


kill you Ron, god!" Hermione howls as quietly as she can into Ron's pillow--Harry's pillow, actually, which she hopes he isn't planning on using any time soon. Ron is sucking the length of her big toe into his mouth, which is sending sparks up through her quim into her tummy.

Ron grins wickedly. "Yeah, you killed me a long time ago, luv. But I bet you'd bring me back to life again..." He runs his tongue along the inside of her ankle, her calf, her thigh, and realizes that his shaft is in fact still really hard and wet with her.

She feels his breath against her labia, feels their just-fucked openness. Looking down over her shoulder, she sees him gazing into the depths of her. "Ron, what are you looking at? You've seen it before."

He grins. "Looks like one of Professor Sprout's paintings--some exotic magical flower." He leans forward and runs that long nose along her open lips.

"Oh, god, Ron, I'm going to..."

He silences her with a single touch of the tongue against her clit.

"Oh! God! Ron! You are so  
  


  
  


beautiful." Bill gazes at Fleur. A black satin mask covers her Veela-silver eyes, and he feels as if he's seeing her mouth, her tiny, perfect breasts, the slow rise and fall of her stomach for the very first time. She is beautiful. Stunning.

It astonishes Fleur to realize that she is excited by this new game--excited that she cannot see him, that she cannot know what he is doing, but also that her ability to charm is now simply that proper to her body. His unseen gaze excites her, because he is seeing her not through the film of her innate enchantment, but as she truly is.

And what he sees excites him. " _Tu es comfortable?_ " he asks.

" _Oui_." She shivers at the touch she hopes will come soon.

" _Tu es si belle_..." He gently runs his hands along the outsides of her breasts, and she moans. " _Est-ce que tu veux que je te laisse ici, ma fleur? Tu voudrais dormir?_ " With his teeth, he pulls at her blonde pubic hair.

" _Non_ ," she whispers. " _Baises-moi... lêches-moi..._ Oh, _Guillaume_... Please, please  
  


  
  


pass the bottle, will you, Angie?" Fred murmurs. He can feel the ache for her; coming back to the family manse is well and good, but three weeks without being able to burrow into her dark folds is just about all a boy can take. This boy, anyway.

Katie giggles from beside George. "Get a room, you two!"

"Got a room, haven't we?" Angelina grumbles; then she takes a belt of Finnegans Firewhiskey ("Youll Lose More than Your Apostrophes!") and passes it to Fred.

"Oh?" snorts Alicia, rubbing George's thigh. "What're the three of us supposed to do? Go down and grab a cup of tea?"

Angelina looks over to her friend, black fire in her eyes. "I'm sure you'll think of something."

Then, before any of them have a chance to make some stupid comment, she lunges across from where she was leaning against the side of Fred's twin bed to where Katie is nearly passed out against George's shoulder and bed. Taking her friend's face between her hands, she presses her lips against Katie's in a deep, hard kiss.

Katie squeaks in surprise, and then moans, her nipples hardening to diamond points beneath her t-shirt before they are covered by Angelina's searching fingers.

Alicia laughs, because, for the first time, she sees the famous Weasley twins absolutely speechless, their jaws open. Pulling her top off, she smirks. "Right, you two, I got two breasts that want attention, and they want it right  
  


  
  


now!" Percy bleats. His body is rigid as he sits on the toilet he used to share with Ron, Fred and George, his legs shaking, his fist pounding at his penis. "Penny! Oh! Penny! Take me  
  


  
  
  


in your mouth?" whinges Charlie. Silver blonde tresses across his red, hard prick. "Oh, Merlin, you're such a tease!"

"Sharlie, you weesh me to take you in ze _bouche_?" Mischief flickers in her grey eyes.

"Merlin, yes!"

"Your weesh iz my command..." Her full lips lower themselves around his thickness. She enjoys the feeling of his veins against this thin tongue. But perhaps...

Hermione's prim lips stretch around his cock and he lets out a gasp. "Oh, damn, that's so amazing when you..."

Suddenly, it is Angelina's wide, soft mouth that envelopes him. "Ah! When you change! Merlin, Tonks, can't I just come in _your_ mouth for once...."

But she doesn't think so. Not this time. She loves to experiment, to see how each body feels, to see what sort of reaction Charlie has to each lover. And she has one more trick to play.

And so, as his balls begin to pulse, Charlie is astonished to find himself coming into the image of his own mouth. "Ah!  
  


  
  


Merlin!" Molly and Arthur moan as they collapse together on their big old four-poster.

Catching their breath, they stare up at the tapestry above the bed: Leda and the Swan.

"Oh, Arthur, when you brought that bloody contraption home, I thought you were daft, but Merlin's testicles..."

With a quick twist, Arthur silences the humming vibrator. "Hoped you'd like that, my dear. Batteries. Wonderful what Muggles think of."

"I'll never say another word," she laughs.

And he laughs too, knowing she will say many another word, indeed. His hand runs down her plush hips, and she burrows into his neck.

They feel their pulses slow together.

"You ever miss it, Molly?"

"Miss what, you silly man?" It always gets her all mushy, seeing his eyes without his glasses. It's as if he's saving his true self just for her.

"Miss doing this for real. Making babies."

Without warning her eyes fill. "Lord." She rests her head on his hairless chest. "Of course I miss it. I loved every minute of it."

He nods, his chin bobbing against her hair.

"Why do you ask, Arthur? Is seven not enough?" She slides off of him and pushes herself up onto her elbows.

"Whew," he says. He thinks of them all, so grown up, even Ginny, who was looking distinctly like a woman, kissing Harry Potter out by the broom shed. "No, Molly, we've done well. Seven's perfect. I was just thinking..."

She smiles, and traces the line of his chin. "You remember making Bill?"

"Remember! You jumping on me like I was a bloody hobby horse."

She chuckles. "And Percy?"

They both start to laugh. She had moved around, fidgeting and fussing, trying to find just the right position for almost a half an hour.

Arthur sighs. "I remember them all. Banging away for an eternity, then loosing this canon shot: boom, the twins."

Molly takes his tiny nipple in her mouth and nibbles at it. Charlie had been when they were playing around with a Levitation Charm. Ron had been when Arthur came home after a failed midnight raid, fear in his eyes, taking her over the kitchen table so they could both be sure he was still alive. And Ginny. Ginny had been sweet and playful and frightening, just like their first time. Because they knew, somehow, that she would be their last.

She shifts to the other nipple.

"Good lord, Molly, what are you playing at? You're getting me hard again!" Arthur's cheeks flush almost instantly, and his cock is in fact raising its tired head.

By way of an answer, she grabs the vibrator and turns it on.

"The house is full... I think we've already made enough noise tonight, Molly..." His hands, however, find her lush breasts as she takes the vibrator and runs it up the length of his cock. "Oh, _fuck_ , yes!" he hisses.

"I think," she says, "we don't need to worry about anyone listening to us tonight."


	2. Tossing Apples

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlie and Ginny go out walking... after midnight, thinking 'bout their babies...

Charlie has found four crab apples, up towards the top of the tree, just where it leans over the broom shed. If Bill were here, they could play a round of catch on their brooms up in the moonlit midnight.  
  
But Bill was speaking softly to Fleur in French, and she was answering him utterly without words, and Ron and his girlfriend were giggling like, well, like schoolkids, and snoring like a whole herd of Welsh Greens was coming from Fred and George's, and Ginny really shouldn't be bothered tonight, and Percy never played Quidditch in his life. So Charlie walked downstairs as quietly as he could, went out into the garden and climbed the tree, not entirely certain why. He fiddles with a Levitation Charm, zooming the apples around the tree in close formation.  
  
A crack of light spills from the front door and a slight figure saunters out towards the tree and the broom shed. Not Fleur--she was busy. Not Ron's lady-friend Hermione--the hair's not bushy enough. Not Tonks. No, not Tonks.  
  
Ginny.  
  
Ginny is walking like a cowboy in one of the old films that Tonks loves to watch when Charlie spends the night at her flat.  
  
He shoots one of the apples towards her, hitting her squarely--though lightly--on the forehead.  
  
"Ouch! What the?..." Ginny looks around. Another apple hits her. "Bloody hell." She catches the third and fourth apples. "Fucking berk."  
  
"Nice catch, Gin," yells Charlie.  
  
"Charlie?" she calls, peering around in the gloom. "Oh, there you are." She tosses both apples at him, forcefully, and he catches them, laughing.  
  
"So," he says, "finally got around to playing Hide the Wand with Harry?"  
  
Even in the gloom, he can tell she's blushing. "God. Is it that obvious?"  
  
He puts on a very airy, Professor Trelawney-like voice. "You are glowing, my dear."  
  
"Really?" She peers up at him, and Charlie can see that seventh-child's skepticism on her face, testing for the joke.  
  
"Nah. Well, maybe you are, but it's too dark for me to see. Aside from the fact that the two of you looked more interested in eating each other than dinner, the dead giveaway is the fact that you're walking as if you've been riding a broom for about a week without a Cushioning Charm."  
  
Ginny answers this with silence. She shifts from one foot to the other, her old robe barely covering her pale legs to the knee.  
  
"You want to come on up, Gin?"  
  
"I, uh, think I'll stand, Charlie, thanks."  
  
Charlie smiles. "I'll come on down then." He jumps from the tree with a thump. Stepping forward, he kisses his sister on the brow. When did she get so damn tall? "Congratulations."  
  
Her arms crossed, she leans her head against his collarbone. "Thanks. I think."  
  
"Everything okay? Wasn't too disappointing, I hope?" He wraps his arms around her.  
  
"Lord, no. It was..." She shakes her head against his chest. "It was amazing. I just don't know what to think."  
  
"I'm so glad. I mean, that it was amazing. My first time wasn't amazing at all."  
  
A sound comes from her, but it is damp and muffled.  
  
"Gin?" Another snuffle. "You crying?" A nod. "What's up? Can I?... I mean, did something happen?"  
  
"Dunno," she wails. "I'm so _happy_..."She sobs loudly into her brother's chest.  
  
"That's, uh, that's great, Gin," he says, patting her on the back. She certainly doesn't sound happy.  
  
"...and so _scared_ , Charlie, Merlin, I'm so scared." High, keening sobs now burst from Ginny, as she collapses against his embrace.  
  
"Oh, hell, Gin, I'm sorry... I know...Everyone..."  
  
A feral snarl boils up from her chest. "Does everyone lie there, watching their boyfriend slowly drift off to sleep, thinking, _He really could die tomorrow or a week from now, I'm not just being a silly little girl_ , and then, _If I didn't die with him, I'd have to kill myself, because I couldn't stand to live_?" Wet with tears and snot, she still spits the words out with ferocious clarity. "Does everyone think, _My love for this boy has gotten me literally possessed once before, and I can feel it happening again and I'm terrified that I'll just disappear_?"  
  
"I'm so sorry, Gin." He wraps her spasming shoulders tight. "It's fucking scary without all that."  
  
"I'm getting your shirt wet."  
  
"No problem. Wet away."  
  
"Why did I have to fall in love with The Bloody Boy Who Nearly Snuffs It Every June? Why couldn't I have fallen in love with someone nice and safe?"  
  
"What, like a Dragon Keeper?" He manages to raise a rough laugh out of her. "He's a good kid, Gin. Magic aside, he's a good one." Gently, Charlie strokes her hair. She hiccoughs." And, I must say, the most brilliant thing Potter ever did was fall in love with you, sis. He's been following you around with his mouth so far open I've wanted to offer him a ruff collar like Nearly-Headless Nick's just to keep his jaw closed." Charlie laughs.  
  
Ginny sniffles again. "I think that's the scariest. That he really might feel... He looked at me while we were, you know, and... Telling me he loves me, over and over again, crying as he's falling asleep. God, Charlie, what am I going to bloody do?"  
  
He thinks of saying, _It's okay, he's just your first, you're not marrying him_. But two thoughts occur to Charlie: that they might very well be pair-bonded, like Charlie and Ginny's own parents, like wolves, like Hungarian Horntails; and that even if this is just the first step down a path of exploration for her, telling her it isn't a big deal still isn't a good idea. "Enjoy it," he says instead. "Love him and let him love you. There's nothing you'll ever feel like it. And you won't disappear. You're too bloody brilliant. You're the toughest one of all of us, and that's no joke."  
  
And for a second, his own throat burns, with sympathy, a little, but also with envy. To be where she and Harry are. To be at the beginning of a great adventure together, where the worst thing you fear is that something outside might come and snatch your love away.  
  
She sniffs twice and smears the mess off of her nose onto his shirtfront.  
  
"Hey!" Charlie says, "I said wet, not wipe!"  
  
Ginny giggles, then moans, dramatically. "Lord, I am sore."  
  
Charlie laughs. "I bet. I'd say it'll be better tomorrow, but I've never, uh, deflowered a girl, so I wouldn't know."  
  
"Merlin. 'Deflowered.' What a silly..." Ginny leans back and peers up. "Wait, I always assumed you and Phyllida were each other's first."  
  
"Nah, I would have loved to, but she was as pure as the driven snow. Still is as far as I know."  
  
"Really? That explains..." Ginny tilts her head to one side. "Who was the lucky girl, then?"  
  
Even in the gloom, Charlie knows his cheeks are darkening. "Well, she wasn't so lucky, and she wasn't a girl." He sees her eyes widen. "No, no, that was Bill's bag of tricks, no, it was a female, just not, you know, exactly a young one."  
  
"What the hell, Charlie.... You're trying to tell me she was an older woman, is that it?"  
  
He mutters unintelligibly.  
  
"What? Come on, Charlie, spit it out. I know you're tupping the sexiest woman on the face of the earth these days, so who was the old hag?"  
  
"Old hag? You cut me to the fucking quick, Gin." She punches him in the shoulder. "Ouch! It was Rosmerta, okay? From the Three Broomsticks." Rosmerta's face, watching him as the bar emptied; he'd been sipping away, first at butterbeer, then at mead, then at firewhiskey, waiting for Phyllida to show up, because she had implied she might let him explore a _bit_ further...  
  
"You're kidding! Charlie, she's..."  
  
"About twenty years older than me, I know." He lets loose his grasp on her, and Ginny steps back, but takes hold of his hand. The two crab apples fall into her long fingers.  
  
"That's not what I was going to say, git. She's one of the other sexiest women alive. I think every male student and teacher since Mum and Dad's time has wanted to test the sheets with her."Ginny snorts. "Some of the females too, for that matter."  
  
He lets loose a long, hissing sigh. "Yeah, well, everyone assumes she sleeps with everything that moves, but she doesn't. I think the only regular partner she's had is Hagrid--and you think _you're_ sore...."  
  
"Ouch!" Ginny barks. "Lord, I'd never thought about..." She shivers and looks up at him again, expectantly. "So what happened. You swept her off her feet with tales of Quidditch glory? Charlie Weasley, best Gryffindor Seeker of his generation?"  
  
"Nah, second best, luv. I've seen your paramour, he's amazing." He squeezes her hand playfully. "Might have been third-best if you hadn't switched to Chaser, from what I've heard."  
  
"G'wan," Ginny sneers. "So, if she likes Hagrid, maybe it was a nice chat about dragons?"  
  
"Nah, she took pity on me, straight and simple. I'd been stood up by Phyllie. And I started spilling my guts out about how, you know, frustrated I was. I'd missed curfew already, and I was the last one in the bar. She patted me on the cheek and offered to..." Charlie sputters a bit.  
  
"Help you out? Teach you a few things?" Ginny is obviously holding back the giggles that Charlie fears will burst out at any moment. "Merlin, Charlie, I always saw you as so smooth and together."  
  
"So glad I've burst another illusion for you." Ginny snorts, trying to hold the laughter in. "I lasted about two minutes. I was so bloody nervous. And so bloody drunk. Took me longer to perform the Contraceptus Charm that Dad had taught me than it did for me to actually perform the act, you know. I passed out right after. I woke up the next morning in her bed. I mean, there she is, naked, in the daylight, this full-blown woman. Smiling. I felt twelve. I was never so humiliated in my life." One hand slowly caressing his morning erection. The other teasing her heavy, hairy cunt.  
  
"Bet you lasted longer the second time, though." The whites of Ginny's eyes disappear, and her teeth flash in the moonlight.  
  
Now Charlie grins, too. How to give. How to receive. How to meet in the middle... "And the third, and the fourth, and the fifth. She was a very patient, very thorough teacher. She opened the pub a bit late that morning." They both laugh, Ginny until she begins to cry again, wiping her eyes on the only dry part of Charlie's shirt available to her, the sleeves. "Professor McGonagall was livid, but we were playing Slytherin the next week, so I got off light. Tried to get together with Rosmerta again after that, but she said she'd only taken me up because she liked me, wanted to do well by me. That she'd given me what she was willing to give, and for the rest, I'd have to look elsewhere." He stares wistfully up towards the dark windows of the Burrow.  
  
Ginny follows his gaze.  
  
Just as she is about to speak, Charlie looks back down at her. "So, I hope Harry lasted a bit longer than two minutes."  
  
She suddenly softens slightly, her slim, muscular frame bending to one side. "Not much. But I didn't mind."  
  
"Good. Don't get on him about it, even as a tease. He'll learn to take his time." They stand mutely. Funny, Charlie thinks. Haven't talked with any of my brothers like this, not even Ron, who is so full of questions.  
  
"So," Ginny says, very quietly,"have you found it? The rest?"  
  
And this time it is Charlie's eyes that spill over, much to his own surprise. "God, Gin, I guess I have. You were talking about how scary it is--I don't know if it ever gets easier. I need her so much, I love her so bloody much. But she's..." How to describe Tonks? The glint in her eye as she swallowed him. The roaring silence afterwards. "I never feel like I'm enough for her, you know? She's so damned amazing."  
  
"I know," Ginny says. "She is."  
  
"I mean, she's funny as hell, a brilliant witch, even if she does drop every plate Mom hands her to dry. But I feel as if, I mean, there's so much to her, 'her infinite variety.' I don't know how I can possibly fulfill all her needs, and I'm terrified she's just going to get, I don't know..."  
  
"Bored? Charlie? Who could get bored of you?" As he shakes his head, she reaches up and wipes the wet from his cheek with the tips of her fingers.  
  
"I don't know, Ginny. _I_ get bored with me sometimes. It's just scary, that's all, getting together with someone for laughs, and all, and then suddenly realizing your whole life would come crashing down if she left. "He pulls his sister towards him again, feels the solidity of her. "We rowing, sometimes, I mean, even you and Harry will some day, right?"  
  
"I can't wait."  
  
"Yeah, well, it's just arguing, all right, it's not a big deal. But we had this big bloody row this afternoon about nothing, about whether we were going to visit her grandfather, the Muggle one, out in Gloucester. And she's yelling at me and I'm thinking, Here we go, this is where she finally walks out. And there was a part of me that was almost _relieved_ , you know? Almost wanted to get it over. And then I was suddenly filled with this panic, like, Merlin, I _can't_ let her go, and so I kissed her, right there while she was in mid-shout." He gives a sad grunt. "Told her I loved her, we'd go wherever the bloody hell she wanted."  
  
Ginny's head rests back on his chest. "Has she ever shown you what she really looks like?"  
  
"Yeah," Charlie sighs. "Earlier tonight. When we make love, she likes to, you know, change, and that's as much as I'm going to tell you because you're my little bloody sister, right? Anyhow, I said to her afterwards, 'I want to see you as you really are.' The face and the body and the hair."  
  
"What did she think of that?"  
  
"That I was a fucking berk. That was the first time someone called me that, tonight, by the way." He tickles her over her right hip, and she yelps. "She did though. Show me. At least, I think she did."  
  
"Was it really different?"  
  
"Nah. The face was more or less the one she always wears, all elfin. The dark brown eyes. And the same long body she usually chooses. But the hair..."  
  
"The hair?" Ginny sounds bemused.  
  
"Yeah. It's long, and silky, and jet black. It was.... I don't know. I mean, I told her she was the most beautiful woman in the world, no matter what face or hair she wore. She could look like that Dolores Umbridge or Bellatrix Bloody LeStrange and I'd still think she was still the most beautiful woman in the entire world. That I loved her. Lord, she is so beautiful. I don't know why she hides it."  
  
"Bet she started to cry," Ginny says softly.  
  
"Right in one, little sis. Absolutely melted." He smiles down at Ginny. "Awful lot of that tonight. You. Me. Our sweeties." With the wave of an arm, he banishes all tears. "Enough. Come on, Gin. Let's get a cuppa in the kitchen."  
  
They stroll towards the Burrow, his arm on her shoulder, her arm around his waist, she still walking gingerly.  
  
They walk into the kitchen and find Tonks and Harry looking up at them, guilty silence in their eyes. Tonks's hair is long and black. "Want some tea?" Harry asks, holding up the teapot. His face is pale, his voice husky. His eyes are locked on Ginny, where they belong.  
  
"Yeah," Charlie says, grabbing two more mugs and sitting.  
  
Ginny sits slowly, with an almost audible wince. When he looks at her, Charlie realizes that she is glowing, after a fashion. She's carrying an aura of discovery and vulnerability that envelops her like an aureole of pale flame. Like her Weasley hair.  
  
"We've been chatting in here," Tonks says, her usually wry eyes looking slightly sad. "The Order, stuff."  
  
"We were talking about being orphans, "Harry says. "How lucky you are to have each other." He smiles at Ginny, and it is an offer, a promise of something Charlie can't quite decipher.  
  
"And about how lucky we are to..., to have you, too," Tonks stutters, none of her usual jokiness. Her dark, dark eyes--the real ones, Charlie trusts deeply--fix him with their gaze. "So what've you two been up to out there?"  
  
Ginny looks up and smiles shyly, first at Tonks, then at Harry. "Tossing apples," she says, and drops them on the table.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Interestingly enough, I found out—long after this story was written—that "tossing apples" was an ancient Greek euphemism for having sex. So there you are!


	3. Tea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Charlie and Ginny are walking, Tonks and Harry are talking.

The door clicks shut, and Harry sits bolt upright. His head is spinning, and the sheets are wound around his legs, damp with sweat and...

Blinking, he searches around and finds his glasses. They'd been knocked off of the nightstand and onto the floor.

Ginny is gone. Her room is crystalline in the moonlight, lace and filigree like sugar icing, and a stain shows black and damp in the middle of her bed, beside his knee. He reaches down and touches it with a finger, and it comes away moist, her blood mixed with his seed, and the hair on his arm bristles, like a cat's. He has done this to her. They have done this.

Perhaps she's gone to the WC to clean up. Perhaps--under the circumstances--she wouldn't mind if he joined her.

Her absence fuels a hunger in him, quite different from the one they have just indulged. Being apart from her hurts. It frightens him.

In a bright patch of moonlight, Harry sees Ginny's dress on the floor, coiled with his jeans where they had been jettisoned some hour or so before. He kneels to disentangle them, and catches the scent of her, the scent of dry grass and sun--if sunshine had a scent. He wants to scream her name out, to find her, but he doesn't want to wake everyone... or _disturb_ everyone. The Burrow is very full tonight. Through the ceiling he hears a creak and a muffled giggle. Ron and Hermione.

He needs to find Ginny.

He steps into his jeans--forget the pants--and pulls on the Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes shirt Fred and George had given him for his birthday present... Well, the first one.

The memory of the signed receipt for seventeen Skiving Snackboxes delivered to number four, Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey, brings enough of a smile to Harry mind and mouth that he feels able to open the door and begin his search for the prettiest of the Weasleys.

Well, no offense meant to Mrs. Weasley or Bill or any of them, but the _only_ pretty Weasley.

Out in the third-floor landing, Harry hears loud snoring from Fred and George's room and a prim wheezing from Percy's. The bathroom door is open and dark, but Harry peeks in anyway, just to be sure.

In the gloom, he thinks he sees a pale face, but is shocked to discover that it is his own. He tries to flatten his wildly mussed hair, but the mirror murmurs sleepily, "Give it up, son."

Back at the landing, Harry gazes up the stairs. He hears Hermione give a loud yelp. No, Ginny's not up there.

On the second floor, he hears more nocturnal sounds from Bill's room and--disconcertingly--from Ginny's parents. Blushing, Harry rushes down the stairs to the ground floor.

At the kitchen table facing away from him sits a woman, but it is not Ginny. Hair--black silk--floods down her back. She turns her head, and Harry sees that it is Tonks, her face wry as usual, but her eyes red-rimmed. "Wotcher, Harry."

"Hey, Tonks." He feels naked. He wonders if he should have washed. Suddenly, he is very aware of his scent, of Ginny's scent on him.

"Looking for Ginny?" the older woman says with a sniff.

Harry nods, then asks, "Tonks, are you okay?"

As soon as the words leave his lips, Harry regrets them. Tonks's face twists, as if wrenched from the inside, and her eyes glisten. After a moment of silence, however, she smirks, the familiar Tonks smirk for all that the hair framing the face is totally strange. "Yeah. Brilliant. You? Ginny give you a, uh, nice birthday gift?"

Harry feels heat rising into his face like steam, seeking escape. "Uh. Yeah." Copper locks across his stomach. Nipples bright like berries in cream. Tight red curls beneath his fingers, beneath his nose.

"Good," says Tonks, still smiling, rubbing a finger under one of her eyes. "She's been talking to me and Hermione about it for weeks."

Harry splutters, humiliated.

Tonks laughs. "What, you didn't think it was just the heat of passion, did you? Don't expect a girl as level-headed as Miss Ginevra to go in unprepared? Besides," Tonks says, the smile stretching to a broad smirk, "Hermione told me _you'd_ been getting some coaching from Ron."

Harry sits down, placing his face on the table, his arms over his head to hide his humiliation.

"It's okay, Harry. I mean, even with all the silencing spells being cast tonight, it wasn't like Charlie and I couldn't hear what was going on. We were right below you."

"Merlin," groans Harry into the scrubbed oak surface, hearing himself screaming her name into her hair, her screaming wordlessly into his neck. "Charlie'll kill me."

"Nah. I think he thought it was kind of sweet." Tonks looks upward. "In this house, everyone seems to know everything about everybody."

Harry grunts and looks up. "Ginny's parents... _They'll_ want to kill me."

"Maybe. But probably not. And..." Now it is Tonk's turn to blush. "Um, I think they were kind of busy tonight."

"Oh, Merlin," Harry laughs. "Yeah. I think you're right."

He sits upright and he and Tonks stare at each other for a moment. "So," she says staring down, suddenly, at her fingers, "was it... okay?"

"What?" Harry asks. Then the blood pools in the pit of his stomach as he realizes what she is asking. "Oh. It was." He looks at her hands too. She's changing the color of the nail polish on her fingers from red to pink to lavender. "It was... brilliant."

"Oh," says Tonks, still focused on her nails. "Good." As they both watch, her nails shift through a neon rainbow's gamut of colors. "Harry?"

"Uh, yeah?"

"Did you?... Ah, bollocks. Did you make sure it was, you know, _brilliant_ for her, too?"

"What?" He looks up to see that her face, still tear-blemished, is turning a deep, vivid crimson. "Oh. Hell. Tonks. Yeah. I mean, I made sure it was, you know, for her. First. I really wanted to..." A high sigh, a giggle-moan, her fingers knotted in his hair, _her_ pulsing against his tongue: magic, that he could bring her such pleasure.

"Good," she says, and they both nod. The flood of color has just begun to fade from both of their faces when Tonks looks up and gives Harry a grin that reminds him how much older than him she is. "Told Ginny she was a lucky girl. First three or four boys I was with, I had to smack 'em with something hard to remind 'em there was someone else involved."

"Not Charlie, though."

Tonks looks up, caught off guard, the black hair cowled around her face. Her mouth sets itself in a neutral line. "No. He can be thick as a bloody brick about some things, but no, not that. Bloody Weasleys, they have no idea."

Now it is Harry's turn to register surprise. "What do you mean?"

Tonks begins to shake her head, as if she's sorry she brought the subject up, then she peers at Harry. "You’re an orphan too, Harry. You understand." Seeing that he doesn't, she presses on, her dark eyes flashing, the habitual humor gone from her voice. "Grew up like you, I did. Mum died when I was six. Dad my first year at Hogwarts. Mum's family wouldn’t have us, obviously, so it's just me and my grandda. And then I... with Charlie, they're all in each other's pockets all the time, everyone knows how everyone feels, how everyone _thinks_. Like I was saying." They hear a groan through the ceiling. Both look up, look to each other, and laugh. Tonks shakes her head. "We were, you know, up in bed tonight, And he turns to me and asks see me... Like I am." She runs her fingers through her hair. "Like... this. And I did. And he starts going on about how bleeding _pretty_ I am..."

"You look beautiful, Tonks."

"I look like what I _am,_ Harry. I look like a bloody Black, like my bloody Auntie _Bell_ , and I can't stand that, I haven't let myself look like this in front of anyone since I was old enough to understand... And Charlie just keeps talking about not being your family, but he's a bloody _Weasley_. He has no idea what it is to be without a family, to hate the bit of family you've got."

The kettle begins to sputter and whistle. Harry gets up. "I know," he says.

Startled, Tonks looks at Harry, her black eyes wide. Then she nods.

Harry fills the teapot and brings it and two mugs to the table.

"I never told you, Harry, but... I knew your family."

With as much nonchalance as he can muster, Harry asks, "When?"

"Right after Mum died. My dad and I were hiding out. We spent two weeks with you and your folks in Godric's Hollow."

"You?..." Harry can't even begin to formulate a question.

Tonks shrugs and nods anyway. "You were just one. So bloody cute. I hadn't laughed in months and you..." Deciding, apparently, that the tea has steeped long enough, she pours herself a mug. "Pass the sugar, will you?"

Harry does. He still can't speak.

Tonks blows at her mug thoughtfully. "You learned to walk while we were there." She peers at him with uncharacteristic shyness. "Took your first steps from your mum's arms to mine."

"Wow," Harry mouths, but no sound comes out.

"I remember your dad--he was just like you. Serious as hell, but funny, right? But your mum..." Tonks attempts a sip of her tea. "She was brilliant. I'd just lost mine, right? And she was... as warm as Molly Weasley, you know? But passionate and funny and..." She looks up and seems to realize that Harry is stunned. "Kind of like another redhead we know."

Harry shakes himself and laughs. "Wow," he says, fully voiced this time. He pours himself a mug of tea and looks into the steam. It is Ginny's face that he sees there, beautiful and terrifying, as it was earlier this night.

"We left just before you lot went into hiding. I didn't see you again till we picked you up from those awful relatives of yours." Tonks's tone is measured, but her eyes are bright.

"Tonks... Thanks." They sit for a moment, both sipping at their tea, neither one of them looking up. "What... You don't have to tell me, but what happened to your parents?"

Tonks looks up, then nods again. "Dad was just a heart attack. Got the owl in the middle of Charms, Floo'd down, was there at St. Mungo's when he actually died. They, uh, didn't think to contact my grandda, 'cause he was a Muggle." She snorts angrily. "Mum. You got to understand that my mum and her sisters hadn't hardly talked since she married a Muggleborn. The only time I ever saw my aunts as a girl, we were at Narcissa's wedding to that great prat, Malfoy, and Bellatrix came over, pinched me on the cheek and asked, 'How's the little blood traitor?' Stupid bint." She is gripping her mug so hard that Harry is concerned that it might break. "Dad and I went out to the cinema one night, some stupid Muggle film about people running, and when we came back, there was that, that bloody _Mark_ floating above our house. Her own _sister..._ "

Harry puts his hand on Tonks's. He can feel the heat of her anger and of the tea. "Have you told Charlie any of this?"

She shrugs. "Some."

"Well, it would be hard for him, wouldn't it? This lot, even when two of them are angry with each other, there's always someone to let you know you're loved...."

She nods, once. "They're so bloody lucky to have each other."

"And I suppose we're bloody lucky to have them," Harry says, the thought forming itself as it is leaving his mouth.

She sips her tea, and Harry knows that she is thinking what he is thinking: that there is more than one way to become a Weasley.

They sit there in silence for three minutes or more before the door to the back yard opens. Charlie enters and--Harry's heart stops--Ginny, her hair a fall of wild flame around her shoulders, her tattered robe clutched tightly to her. She fixes Harry with her squirrel-black eyes, and Harry knows that, whatever time it is given to him to live, he will spend it loving her.

He lifts the teapot. "Want some tea?" he asks.


	4. Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes even the two smartest people in the house need help figuring out what the hell just happened.

The answer hangs in the air for a good five minutes, and Hermione's heart is pounding fiercely, showing no sign of letting up.

Ron starts snoring.

She feels her stomach twisting between pushing up tears and the urge to howl with laughter.

And she needs to pee.

Gently she disentangles herself from the long arms and legs, feels his soft, damp cock dragging along her thigh and swings her feet onto the floor, grabbing her fluffy robe from Harry's empty bed as she shuffles toward the door.

The problem, she decides, is that aside from the simple challenge of getting two unlike brains to operate on anything like the same wavelength, you've got bodies with different needs entirely--different from the minds', different from each other's. And that's not even looking at emotional literacy, because if you're looking at that... Well.

She walks quietly down the stairs, hoping not to disturb anyone--wishing she could go and wake Ginny, but knowing that she cannot do that tonight, either to her friend or to Harry. Though maybe both?... Lord knows she has listened to Harry spin his anxieties out often enough, and Lord knows they'd want to know and to listen.

But...

No.

Not tonight. Perhaps in the morning. Ginny. Or Harry. Or both of them.

Yes.

Ginny's door is closed and the room is silent; snores rumble out of Percy's room and the twins'. Low and thunderous from Fred and George's. Precise and almost fluty from Percy.

It's nice to have Percy here, and all of them know it. Even he seems to be happy to have them all teasing him again. The empty room was the worst, during his estrangement, a constant reminder of a limb of this family cut off.

Hermione thinks of her own sister, of trying to have a conversation with her about boyfriends at the beginning of the summer, and the two of them staring at each other as the conversation petered out and realizing that, really, they had nothing to say to each other. That had been even more painful than having to tell Mum and Daddy that she was going to spend the end of the summer with the Weasleys. Again.

Would they be happy?

She turned in to the loo.

To see the naked back and buttocks of a man availing himself of the facilities. A Weasley man, she's certainly qualified to judge: red hair, freckled back. Long copper locks, loose to below square shoulders. A tattoo of an Egyptian crook-and-cross at the base of his spine.

"Bill!" she gasps.

Astonished, the eldest Weasley brother whips around, eyes wide, and tries to bend, too much to cover all at once.

"God! I'm sorry!" Hermione squeals as quietly as she can manage, squeezing her eyes shut and turning around, but not before the image of another long, white Weasley penis has imprinted itself upon her mind.

Cockcockcockcuntcuntcuntfuckfuckfuck... Oh, dear.

A moment later she hears the toilet flush and the tap run, then feels a slightly damp hand on her shoulder.

"Sorry," whispers Bill. "I'm here so infrequently. I forget it's not just family."

Hermione nods. "I'm the one who should be sorry. I didn't even think to knock or..."

"C'mon, I didn't even close the door. Don't bother yourself. Just don't tell Fleur--I don't think she'd be very amused."

"Ah," Hermione says.

"Hermione," Bill says, "you can open your eyes now."

"Oh, " Hermione says.

Tentatively, she squints her eyes open. He is standing before her, a towel wrapped around his narrow hips, his face and chest chiseled marble in the moonlit hall. "Hmm," she says. He isn't as tall as Ron, but he bears himself with such quiet strength and she is so open just now that she knows she needs to move. "My turn," she says, and scoots into the loo before he can see her nipples stiffen.

She closes the door behind her, her eyes adjusting to the dim light of the ancient charmed fairy-shaped nightlight. It's madness, to have thirteen people sharing a single toilet.

She expects Bill to have gone when she comes out, but he hasn't. He is now wrapped in a robe that is too flowery and too small to be his own. With the window behind him, his eyes are black pits.

"Hermione," he says, "may I... ask you something?"

Her heart skips and she yells at herself for being hormonal and silly--at this moment especially. "Of course, Bill. What do you have on your mind?"

"Well, I... Uh, are you okay, Hermione? You seem a bit... flustered."

"Oh!" Her hand flies to her hair, for no reason that she can think of. "I've just got something on my mind rather at the moment," she splutters. Time to change the subject. "Also, I'm sad to say that I'm not quite used to encountering naked men in the middle of the night. Did you know that the _ankh_ was the Egyptian symbol for eternal life?"

Bill gives her a bemused look, then laughs, quietly reaching towards his back with one lace-clad arm. "Right. It's also a glyph the old wizard-priests used to use to mark doors guarded with the earliest form of the _Avada Kedavra_ curse. So it's a bit of an in joke with us curse breakers to use it to mark things you'd rather people, uh, kept their hands off of."

"Oh," Hermione says, "I see." Before the flutters can take hold of her entirely, she asks, "Bill, what were you going to ask?"

His eyes retreat into shadows again. "I guess it's just something I want to run by you. Think of it as a hypothetical case." She nods, and he continues. "Suppose," he says, fingers running through his locks, "suppose that you were with someone, you know? And they were totally... _foreign_ to you in every possible way. Almost as if you were a different species. Different way of thinking. Different way of speaking, certainly. Different values. Different ambitions. So different that sometimes they just... infuriate you."

Her mind flooded with images of six years' worth of arguments with Ron, she begins to speak, to apologize, for what she is not sure, but Bill continues. "And yet, in spite of that, you are madly in love with this strange creature. You are drunk with them. You can't imagine spending a day without them, even those days when you feel like killing them. Then, one night, out of the blue, this person... asks you to marry them. And without even having to think, you say yes."

Hermione, whose heart has been pounding throughout this recitation, gasps. "How could you?..." He starts in surprise at her reaction, and she peers into his face. "Wait. Bill. Just whom are we talking about?"

Now it is Bill's turn to be flustered. "Why... I... Fleur and me." He looks at her, truly abashed.

"Oh! Bill!" Hermione is barely able to keep her voice down. "She asked you to marry her?"

He nods intently.

"Oh! Bill! I'm so... I want to hear all about it! Let's go get some tea," she burbles, heading towards the stairs. "That's _wonderful_!"

His excitement getting the better of him as he begins to follow her down, he blurts, "Yeah, it bloody well is! I can't believe it, I mean, why would she?... Wait a mo." He stops at the top of the stairs down to the ground floor. "Hermione, when you said... Did my little brother Ron?..."

She looks up at him, and whatever expression is on her face suffices to silence him. "Why would you possibly pose that to me as a _hypothetical_ situation?" she asks, voice quavering.

"Because," he groans quietly, leaning against the wall, where pictures of red-headed relatives are blinking themselves awake. "Because I never know myself with Fleur," he says, and sighs deeply. "Hermione, do you know the mechanism for the glamour that Veela cast?"

In her mind, it is as if _Veela, Ondines and Other Krypto-Succubi_ were open in front of her, though she hasn't read the book since fourth year. "Well, as I remember there are two or three separate components to the charm, actually. The most powerful is the song, which most male--and many female--humans find difficult to resist. The second is transmitted by the eyes. And then there is also a glamour on their hair..."

"Yeah, well, the hair is fairly secondary. And the song is totally voluntary--the Veela has to _want_ to use her voice to enchant for that to work. But the eyes are involuntary. Like a Basilisk's. Even the strongest-willed men--and, as you say, many women--have a hard time not turning into a blubbering mass when looking into a Veela's eyes, unless their heart is claimed by another."

"Well, you've always seemed to manage pretty well around Fleur, Bill." Harry too, for that matter, back during the Tri-Wizard Tournament, if not the Quidditch World Cup. I wonder what that meant? she ponders. And Ron... Well, he hasn't made anywhere near the idiot out of himself this year that he did back in fourth year.

He sighs. "I think that's one of the reasons she liked me. Likes me. Fleur, that is. I think she likes the fact that I don't just fall to goo at her feet." His face hardens. "But I _am_ affected by her... Look, I don't want you to think this is too kinky or anything, but..." He looks up the stairs.

"But? Good Lord, Bill, you can't not finish a sentence like _that_!" Hermione hisses.

He shakes his head, grinning sadly. "I've been blindfolding her when we make love, recently. She thinks it's exciting, I think, not knowing what I'm going to do. And knowing I'm not... under her spell. And _I_..." He is beginning to shiver, the lace around his cuffs trembling. "I've begun to realize just how in love with her I really am. That I'm just as besotted without the damned charms and glamours as with them. So when she asked me tonight, I..." He stops, his brow twisted in the kind of concentration that Hermione recognizes all too well from Ron, from when he's playing chess, or fighting with her.

"You said yes, Bill. You said yes."

He takes a deep breath and lets it out. Then he fixes her with his dark gaze for a moment, and nods. "Thanks, Hermione. I just needed someone to remind me of that, I guess."

"Glad I could help," Hermione says, stifling a giggle to think what Lavender or Parvati would think if they knew someone like Bill had asked _her_ for relationship advice. "Just... Why me?"

He grins, and the desire to giggle strangely evaporates. "Because you're as clever as the twins, as clear-headed as Ginny, and as honor-bound as Percy. Because your name isn't Weasley. Because in seven years, you've never killed Ron, though, knowing him, I'm sure you've had cause. Because when you walked in on me, starkers in the WC, you had the good form not to laugh." He leans forward, takes either cheek in a hand, and kisses her on the forehead.

Hermione is too surprised even to gasp.

"Congratulations, Hermione. My little bro's a very lucky man."

That's done it. The dam breaks and the tears flow and Hermione is afraid she's about to splinter into a million pieces, like a Boggart that's been laughed at one time too many.

His arms enfold her, and she weeps onto his bicep. The silk smells of Channel No. 5. Within two minutes, she's soaked it through, so that his red hair is visible through the robe, but the sobbing has subsided. "Bill?"

"What?"

"Do you think your parents will mind?"

"Mind?" He pulls back and stares down at her, and the resemblance to Ron's habitual goggle of disbelief makes Hermione want to laugh. "Mind what? That the silly git had the good sense to snag someone as brilliant as you?"

"Stop, Bill, please. You'll make me start crying again, and neither of us wants that. Do you think..." and her throat tightens before she is able finally to finish, "You're a pure-blood family. Do you think they'll care that I'm a Muggle-born?" She stares at the wet spot on his arm, unwilling to look up.

"Oh, bloody hell, Hermione," Bill sighs. "I'm marrying a part-Veela. At least you're all _human._ Besides, have you _met_ my dad yet? Balding chap with glasses, always has some mad Muggle machine in pieces out in the shed? He'll think it's the best thing since Spell-o-tape. Probably be upset Ron didn't propose to your sister and bring some _real_ Muggle blood into the family tree!"

Hermione gives a mock growl that would have had Ron or Harry diving for cover.

Bill just laughs quietly. "Mom'll be ecstatic, because you make Ron happy without letting him get away with anything. C'mon, let's go down, I'll make us a cuppa." He places his hand on her shoulder and they walk down the last flight of stairs together.

To Hermione's surprise, the light in the kitchen is on. Charlie, Tonks, Harry and Ginny are seated around one end of the table, and the four of them look up like startled unicorns.

Ginny's birthday present for Harry, she remembers. Oh. The two of them are wide-eyed, apparently on some knife-edge between terror and glee. Looking at them, she can feel the tears bubbling up again. No, not now. Another time.

Charlie and Tonks look more solemn, but something's there too.

"Hey, Charlie, what's up?" Bill says, clearly trying to gauge just what's what.

"We've been down here for a bit," Charlie says nonchalantly, "having a chat and some tea. Nice robe, by the way."

"Yeah, picked it up in a little shop in the Rue des Sorcières," Bill smirks, and strikes a glam pose, lace and flowers parting to reveal his chest. Then he peers over at the teapot in Ginny's hand. "Any left in the pot?"

"Yeah," Ginny says. "Just made fresh." Her feet are reaching for Harry's beneath the table.

Tonks charms a pair of mugs over from the drying board and pours out, her eyes dark and unreadable.

Harry's eyes are back on Ginny's face.

"Good," Bill says, the self-assurance that Hermione is used to returning to his voice. "'Cause I've got some news I'd like to tell you lot. And I think," he says, grinning at Hermione, "that Miss Granger here might have some as well...."

Now. Now's the time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Amazing to find out what's really going on in Hermione's brain, isn't it?


	5. Toi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy wakes to find a beautiful woman in his bedroom. Oh, bother.

It annoys Percy no end to find himself awakened from his dream. He was dreaming of Penny, and as he opens his eyes, he can still feel the tendrils of her hair whispering across his skin.  
  
And hears another muffled shout from downstairs.  
  
Really. _Must_ his brothers gabble about like tinkers at all hours? _No_ respect...  
  
He looks over towards the full moon of his alarm clock, then reaches for his glasses.  
  
" _Non, Perceval_ , please," a soft voice calls from across the room, near the door. "Leave rest your glasses, please."  
  
Fleur. "Miss Delacour..."  
  
"Fleur, please, _Perceval_. It 'as to be that I talk with you, please, don't put on your _lunettes..._ "  
  
Her English has slipped, Percy notes. Has she been drinking? Or crying? He pulls his pajama top closed. "How may I help you... Fleur? And why do you not want me to put on my glasses? I can barely see you." In the moonlight, her hair is a silvery blob halfway up the wall; her face is a scarcely paler oval in the middle.  
  
"I would rather it was this way, _s'il te plait_..." She sniffs lightly.  
  
Perhaps drinking _and_ crying. "All right," Percy says, noting with some disgust that he has adopted his Reasonable Voice. "What can I do for you?" It feels as if he is greeting a colleague from the French _Bureau de Magie_ rather than his eldest brother's part-Veela girlfriend.  
  
" _Perceval_... Did you know the Veela tell stories about your name... uh, _homonyme..._ namesake, yes?"  
  
"The knight in the Grail stories?"  
  
" _Oui_ ," she says softly in a way that makes Percy pull his blankets up a bit higher, for all that it's a warm summer night.  
  
"Well, he's a bit of a buffoon, really."  
  
"Not in the stories my _grand-mère_ tells. 'Er stories of 'is travels are very _romantique_... 'Is name, _Perce-val_ , your name, it means 'to pierce the valley.' And of course, to the Veela, that 'as a meaning very erotic. Because, to the Veela, _l'érotique, c'est tout._ But it also means... Not to choose one side or the other, but to find a different path. _Oui_?"  
  
" _Oui_ ," Percy agrees, flinching at the sound of the word as it leaves his lips.  
  
"Do you remember, _Perceval_ , when you came to 'Ogwarts, to judge the Tournament?"  
  
He is very aware that she is walking forward, towards the foot of his bed. "I remember quite well."  
  
"I know I did the wrong thing. I knew it then. To kiss you... I did not think then that it would be such a wrong thing to do. But it _was_ wrong. I know that."  
  
She has the damp sound that Penny sometimes gets when she has been crying. Is she crying? "Fleur?..."  
  
" _Non_ , _Perceval_ , please, let me finish. I kissed you because, from when I was twelve years old just till that point, any man I wanted to make do something, I only 'ad to flutter my eyes at 'im. And a kiss?" She made a uniquely Gallic sound of dismissal. "Grown men bent like pieces of _paille_ , of straw. It was too easy. And so when I 'ad the chance to kiss a _juge_... I knew I was cheating, but it seemed to me that Madame Maxime was the only one of the teachers who seemed to give a care..." Her weight settles on the bed, just below Percy's knee.  
  
"Actually, Dumbledore..."  
  
" _Je sais_ , Percy, I know that now." He can make out the lines of her face, now, if not the details. He can see that she is in little more than a slip. " _Perceval_ , I am sorry for what I did. But... it taught me something." Her weight whispers onto his bed, the coverlet pressing down on his shins. "Percy, when you refused me, I was... shocked, _oui?_ It 'ad never 'appened before. At first, I 'ad anger towards you but then.... I found it very _attrayant_ , this power of yours."  
  
"Power?" Percy asks, trying not to squeak. Think of Penny, he thinks. Think of Penny. Her hair on my stomach. Her lips. Oh. Don't think of Penny...  
  
"The fact that you did not... bend to my _charmes_. You see, most men melt to a Veela like butter. Especially young men. Your brother Ron--I felt badly for 'im that year, but it was _très amusant_.... But not you."  
  
"Well, it wasn't right, you know," he says, trying to keep his breathing even, bending his knees to relieve the pressure somewhat. "And I had Penny."  
  
"Yes, I know that now. Even so... 'Ow is Penelope, by the way?" She rests a featherlight hand on his knee.  
  
"Well. Researching herbs in Brazil with Professor Sprout for another few weeks..." I miss her, he thinks. I miss curling myself around her, and curving myself within her and... He sighs.  
  
" _Je comprend_ ," says Fleur. She sits silently for a moment. "When I met _Guillaume_ , 'e 'ad that same strength. I could love 'im without that changing 'o 'e was, _oui?_ I 'ad not believed that a man could be enough... 'imself, that my nature would not... _zut... accable..._ overpower 'im, you understand? But then I 'ad met you. And young 'Arry. And so, when I met Bill..." A sniffle. She _is_ crying. "You will probably not believe me. Everyone thinks a _thing_ like me, I would 'ave affairs of love constantly. After all, I am part Veela, _non_? _Merde_! I am **_French_**!" spits Fleur. "But Bill is the first man I 'ave loved, truly. It is very... affrighting. To think that love is something that 'appens to other peoples because of glamours and pheromones. And to find it 'appening to _you_." She reaches to where a box of tissues lies on his nightstand and, with an uncharacteristic honk, blows her nose.  
  
Percy resists the urge to reach out to her. "Is?... Has something happened, Fleur? Did you and Bill?..."  
  
"Tonight, I ask _Guillaume_ to marry me," Fleur sobs, "and 'e says yes." Now she begins to cry in earnest, and Percy's sense of propriety is beginning to shatter. This young woman is in your bedroom in the middle of the night, weeping, telling you... that she is engaged to marry your older brother? Is it appropriate to give comfort? What are the limits to the forms of comfort that may be given?  
  
Before he has even had time to enumerate his options, Percy sits forward and puts his arms around Fleur's heaving shoulders, patting her back in a manner that he hopes is calming. "Well," he stutters, "I, uh, suppose that congratulations are in order..."  
  
But she simply cries on.  
  
He can feel her tears on his neck, and has a moment of panic. Aren't Veela tears supposed to be dangerous? Or was that Ondines? "Fleur? Are you... happy?"  
  
_"YES!"_  
  
"Then, uh, what... Shouldn't you be talking to Bill? Or perhaps... my parents?"  
  
In the midst of sobbing, she laughs, and then the tears begin to wane. " _Perceval_.... I 'ave a favor I wish to ask of you. That is why I 'ave come 'ere tonight."  
  
"Well, Fleur, I'd be... happy. To do anything. Within reason."  
  
She sits back, and Percy can see, close as she is, that her face is blotchy and tear-streaked. And that she is smiling.  
  
" _Bien_ ," she says. "Percy, can you see me clearly? Do you need your _lunettes_?"  
  
"No," he says, trying not to lose himself in the sapphire glare of her eyes, the shimmer of her hair. The heaving of her small... _poitrine._ "I'm near-sighted. I can see you perfectly at this distance."  
  
"Good," she sighs and kisses him, deeply, her tongue dancing across his lips, her lithe fingers dancing across his throat and chest and stomach, stopping just short of… Oh.  
  
With a start, he breaks the kiss, but she holds onto his face, locking his startled eyes on hers.  
  
" _Perceval_ ," she purrs, "tell me what to do."  
  
He blinks. _What to do?_ What kind of a question?... He takes a deep breath, and gazes into those blue eyes. "I'm married, Fleur. Penny and I eloped last year. I've been waiting till she gets back to tell the family."  
  
" _Oui?"_ she sighs. "And what would you like me to _do_ , _Perceval_ Weasley?"  
  
He takes her hands in his but keeps the eye contact. "That depends rather on what this little demonstration was intended to achieve. If you were simply trying to have a last-minute _fling_ , then I think..." I think you should fuck off and go die, he thinks, but chooses not to say. "I think you should leave this room at once."  
  
She shakes her head. " _Non_ , that is not why I 'ave done this..."  
  
"Well," Percy continues, "if you are trying to prove to yourself that Weasley men are defective..."  
  
She shakes her head vehemently.  
  
"Or that we mean what we say, bugger the charms and glamours..."  
  
She nods vigorously.  
  
Percy takes a deep breath. "Then I think you should stop questioning yourself. He doesn't talk to me much, Bill. But I know he loves you. I've never seen him so... well, _not_ silly about a person. And so, then, what I want you to _do_ , Miss Delacour, is get off of my bed, and go and tell my eldest brother from me that he is the second luckiest man on either side of the Channel."  
  
With a laugh, she throws her arms around his neck and hugs him, then gives him a quick peck on either cheek. "Thank you, _Perceval_. You 'ave filled me of joy, and of relief."  
  
"My pleasure," Percy says. Then he looks at her face, and he cannot stop himself. "Fleur, may I?... Just... You _know_ that Bill's past is a little... unusual, yes?"  
  
She peers at him quizzically, and then giggles. "You mean, 'e 'as dated boys? _Mais oui_. We 'ave 'ad some very interesting conversations, _Guillaume_ and I." Her smile in that moment is so supremely wicked that Percy has no choice but to blush. "And congratulations on _your_ marriage, Percy." Again, she kisses him on either cheek. And the blush deepens.  
  
"Uh, thank you, thank you very much. I feel terrible of course, that Mum was deprived of seeing her first child off properly... She'll be broken-hearted when we tell her..."  
  
"She will be 'appy, I think, that _you_ are 'appy." The dazzling eyes dim slightly. "She does not like me very much, your mother, I think."  
  
"Well, I could give you the same advice you just gave me. Trust that she'll take joy in Bill's joy, and leave it at that. If you truly love Bill, then she will love you." Percy sits back, and as his vision blurs, he can feel the effect of her gaze softening. "Fleur... Why me? Was it just the thing that happened at the Tri-Wizard Tournament? Surely there is someone else..."  
  
" _Oui_?" Fleur asks, a sad laugh in her voice. " _Qui_? I thought about your father. But then I would _never_ 'ave been able to look your mother in the face! The twins? They are nothing if not... impulsive, yes? Charles, I could 'ave asked, but 'e 'as 'ad bad experiences with Veela in Romania, 'e said. Also, Tonks and I are friendly enough, but if I tried something like that on 'er boyfriend, I think I would get a very good demonstration of the Auror techniques of combat. Ron, 'e probably would 'ave been fine, but I wouldn't want to make messes of what 'e is making with 'ermione. Any more than more than I would want to do that to _la petite Ginèvre_..."  
  
Percy feels a breath suck itself in. "You... Ginny?"  
  
She laughs again. "Really, Percy, you need to broaden your 'orizons! But no, I do not like girls, since they typically do not like me. I simply meant that I wouldn't want to threaten anything between 'er and 'Arry. I am... very fond of 'Arry."  
  
"As are we all," Percy mutters. "But... Upset Harry? Are you talking about the attack on Grimmauld Place?"  
  
She smiles and shakes her flaxen head.  
  
"Well, then, what are you talking about getting in the way of? Between him and Ginny? Between Ron and Miss Granger?"  
  
This time the laugh comes out as more of a snort. "Stay 'ere a few more days, _mon chevalier de la table ronde_ , watch them, those four, and then ask that question again, _d'accord?_ " She reaches out and touches Percy's shoulder. "That left you, _Perceval_. And it was necessary that I know, yes? Because, after Bill said yes to me, 'e became very... _Le mot, le mot_... Withdrawn? It frightened me. And so I thought that, perhaps, in my own need, I 'ad charmed 'im, in spite of myself... He got up to go to the WC, and I snuck in 'ere. I 'ad been waiting for some time before you woke, and I thought, Take your chance, _oui?_ "  
  
" _Oui_ ," Percy demurs, then looks to the door. "Won't he be... worried about you?"  
  
She shrugs, her cloud of blonde hair billowing in the moonlight. "I think I 'eard 'im going downstairs just before you woke."  
  
There is another cry from the kitchen.  
  
"Oh, yes." He peers over to the clock. It seems to read 2:45 in the morning. "What on earth can he be doing down there? And who's with him? That sounded like a..." He glances to Fleur.  
  
" _Oui_ , that was a girl. I'm not jealous, Percy. I am worried that my Bill loves too much, not that 'e does not love enough. Come," she says, "shall we go down and find out what it is that is so amusing?"  
  
"Certainly," Percy sighs. If only to guarantee a quiet night's sleep, he thinks. "Would you mind passing me my dressing gown from the chair?"  
  
" _Bien sûr,_ " she says.  
  
As she gets it, he grabs his glasses. When he turns to take his robe, he is suddenly struck by how fortunate he was that she did not let him put on his glasses before conducting her little experiment. Percy generally likes girls who are, well, _womanly_ , full-figured. Like Penny, if it comes to that. Generally, skinny girls do nothing for him whatsoever. But the sight of Fleur Delacour, sylph-like, sitting on his bed in nothing more than a very elegant silk nightgown, _très décolletée_ , is more than he thinks his heart could have taken had he risen straight from his dream of Penny... to that.  
  
She smiles, catlike, and holds out his robe.  
  
Percy follows her down the stairs, watching the champagne-hued silk move over her body, and thinks, The twins are right. I must be the biggest prat alive to have turned _that_ down. Twice. He sighs.  
  
When they reach the kitchen, there is a babble of giggles, squeals and sighs coming from over by the counter, where Hermione Granger is holding forth to Ginny and Harry. "Well," she says, "it was actually _Ron's_ idea. He said wizarding families hyphenate all of the time, though it's usually when the _wife_ is a pureblood. I wanted Weasley-Granger, but he said he wanted Granger-Weasley. Just before he fell asleep."  
  
Percy's breath catches. He looks over to Fleur, but she has sat in Bill's lap, and does not seem to have heard. Harry laughs, and Ginny smiles, saying, "He always did want something that was just his."  
  
Percy feels his Head Boy voice boiling up. "In the first place, what _are_ you talking about? In the second place... What on earth are you all doing up? It's nearly three in the morning!"  
  
There is laughter from Hermione, Ginny and Harry, from Bill and Fleur. Charlie and Tonks are sitting together, sipping tea quietly, and there is no laughter from them. "Percy," Ginny says, "lighten up! This is a day to celebrate! Fleur's asked..."  
  
"Yes, yes, I know, she and Bill are getting married. She told me. Congratulations, Bill, by the way." Bill winks, and Percy turns to Hermione. "But what's this about you and my youngest brother?..."  
  
Hermione squares her shoulders to him, her face suddenly shifting from pink glee to dark glower, and Percy is forcibly reminded that she is no longer the precocious, buck-toothed little girl that he took under his wing when he was Prefect. "Percy, we are of age. And, even if we weren't..." She shoots a look to Harry, who blinks. "Even if we weren't, it wouldn't change the fact that we have faced death and terror together, let alone all the normal adolescent crap, fought through it together, and got here. We love each other. We know what we're doing. We're not getting married tomorrow. But there's a war on! We could die tomorrow, any of us, and doesn't it make sense to tell the people we love that we love them, while we've got the chance? With all that's going on, _why wait_?"  
  
Stunned, Percy nods.  
  
"So," Bill calls gleefully, "the only question that remains now--aside from which of us Mum will yell at loudest, me for waiting so long, or Ron, for not waiting long _enough_ \--is who gets married first, the youngest Weasley brother, or the eldest!"  
  
The young trio at the counter laugh. Charlie peers at Tonks's impassive face, a pained expression on his own. Fleur nods to Percy, a sphinx-like smile on her elegant, full lips.  
  
"Actually," Percy says, suddenly lightheaded, "I think, I may have staked a claim to that..."  
  
Charlie looks up, aghast. " _Et tu, Brute_?"  
  
Fleur reaches across and touches Tonks's shoulder. " _Et toi aussi, mon frère...._ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The French here comes from my rusty store of long-ago high school. I tried to write it so that it would be clear what she was saying even if you don't speak French.
> 
> However, a couple of translations of some of the more obscure stuff, just to clear some things up:
> 
> l'érotique, c'est tout=the erotic is everything/means everything  
> mon chevalier de la table ronde=my Knight of the Round Table (that is, Percival--what can I say, she likes his name! :wink:)  
> Et toi aussi, mon frère....=and you too, my brother  
> attrayant=attractive  
> poitrine=chest  
> accabler=to overwhelm  
> d'accord?=agreed/okay?  
> Bureau de Magie=French Office of Magic  
> très décolletée=very low-cut


	6. Twins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lot of fluff, a bit of angst, some people dealing with the aftermath of a pretty wild night. This is the grand finale of The Weasley Family Picnic...

The first pair of lips are thin, and the second pair pouty. The third pair are full and warm and those are the ones that cause George's eyes to fly open. Well, that and the quick squeeze to his testicles.

"Seeya, George," Angelina sighs as he flicks a glance, first to his twin, then to the other two girls, who are pulling their clothes on. The memory of the contrast between Alicia’s gracious curves and Katie’s tight ripples is vivid in his fingertips. The taste of all three is fresh in his mouth.

"Don't go," he manages to say, sex, exhaustion, and the beginnings of a massive hangover thickening his tongue. "'S late."

"Yeah," Katie says. "Angie and I got practice tomorrow. This morning. Gwenog'll have our bloody hides if we're not sharp. We gotta get some real sleep."

"And my bosses are bloody slave drivers," Alicia teases. "If I'm not there to open the shop, they'll kill me..."

"Ali..." George pleads, reaching for her breast, which she is threatening to close away beneath her bra.

"Nah, George,” she giggles, pulling away, snapping her bra shut. “I'm helping my mum shop for a dress for my sister's wedding. Gotta be there before I get to work, you Goblins, you," she smirks, tucking her top into her jeans.

"Besides," Angelina says with a grin, "if we were still here in the morning, your mum would serve the lot of us up for breakfast to the rest of the crew."

"Tata," Katie says, a sly smile barely visible on her cupid's bow of a mouth from across the starlit room. "Do this again, some time, shall we?"

With soft _pops_ , the three girls Disapparate.

On the other twin bed, Fred lets loose a long sigh.

Feeling unaccustomedly tentative, George whispers, "What is it, my brother?"

"A sad day, my brother," Fred moans.

"A _sad_ day?" goggles George, peering across to where his twin is lying on his back, staring at the ceiling, knotted sheet pulled just over his privates.

"Yeah," Fred mutters, "sad. Have you considered what a tragedy it is, brother mine, for two men such as ourselves to have lived out our every fantasy before our twentieth birthday? What is there left to live for?"

His mind a tangle of Bell, Spinnet and Johnson limbs, cunts and mouths, George snorts.

"I mean it!" insists Fred. "I mean, why do we do it all?"

"What?" George gasps.

"All of it. I mean, the pissing about with the girls, I guess I can see that... But the pranks. And the joke shop. And the Order.... What the bloody hell is it all leading to?" Fred's voice is flat, dead.

George yanks his wand from beneath his pillow and jumps across to the other bed. "All right," he hisses, pointing the wand at his brother's square face, "who the bloody hell are you and what the hell have you done with my brother Fred?"

Fred swats at the wand, and purple sparks scorch his pillow. "Cut it the fuck out, George. I'm serious."

"That's why I'm worried, you stupid sod," George mutters. "Look," he says, swinging himself off of his brother's stomach to sit on the tangled sheets at the side of the bed, "the stuff we do for the Order is _important_. We're trying to save lives. And the joke shop.... I think Harry was right, when he gave us that money. People need to laugh, now more than ever...."

"I suppose," sighs Fred. Then he snorts and grins, "Should have seen your face, when I said I was serious!..."

Laughing, George whacks his twin's bare shoulder. "Bloody hell. You were scaring the life out of me." A thought cools his relief. "Fred, did it bother you, when Angie and me?..."

Fred gives a throaty, hollow laugh. "Or when Angie and Katie?... Or Angie and Alicia?... Nah. Why would it bother me? It was fucking _amazing_...." He shakes his head. "I think I'm... stunned. In shock. That's all."

George hits his brother's shoulder again, just because it seems like the thing to do. "You're hungry, that's what it is," he says. "Too much sex and alcohol on an empty stomach. Shall we raid the larder, brother of mine?"

"A little midnight snack. Just what the Healer ordered!" Fred sits up, and George is suddenly struck by an odd wave of embarrassment. He and Fred have never been at all modest around each other. It has always seemed pointless. But somehow, after the last couple of hours, the small marks, stains and scratches on his brother's body make him more than a bit shy. He tosses his brother's pajamas to him, then goes to retrieve his own.

As they walk down the stairs, they hear voices--not raised, exactly, but definitely angry. "Is that Tonks?" George whispers.

Fred puts a finger up to his lips. "Our Charlie's done something stupid, I reckon."

"Must've been pretty good if they're rowing about it at this time of night..." says George, and they slink up the shadowed side of the hallway, trying to catch whatever blackmail material they can.

"...not going to bloody quit and pack off to Romania to cook bloody goulash and clean your bloody fireproof cloak, you got it?"

Charlie's voice mumbles unintelligibly.

"Tonks, he's not asking you to..." It is Hermione's voice, and George and Fred share a look of surprise.

"I don't want to fucking talk about it with the entire bloody Weasley clan!" hisses Tonks. "This is between Charlie and me!"

Since when did Hermione join the Weasley clan?

"Tonks," Charlie pleads, before his voice dissipates again into a murmur.

"Everybody in everybody else's pocket, remember?" Harry says, voice low but strong. "Tonks. There's something else bothering you. You don't have to tell us, but don't take it out on Charlie."

Tonks laughs, a bark that puts George in mind of Tonks's late cousin. "Bloody hell, Harry, do you have to pull the Dumbledore routine on us?"

"I'm not a Legilemens, Tonks," Ginny's boyfriend says, a hint of humor coloring the seriousness of his tone. "Professor Snape says I lack the requisite subtlety, whatever the hell that means."

Charlie speaks clearly for the first time. "Tonks, luv, even I know something's bothering you, and Weasley men are about as empathic as Blast-Ended Screwts. Even before I asked... C'mon."

There's an odd vibrato sound, and George realizes with a lurch that Tonks must be crying. Pulling a face at Fred, he reaches the decision to intrude, if only to change the mood. Fred nods.

The two walk in, and are stunned to see not only Charlie, Tonks and Ron's best friends, but Ginny (coiled in Harry's arms), Bill, with Fleur in his lap, and Percy, of all people, all of them arrayed around the scrubbed oak table. The group looks up, rather less astonished than they should have been to see the twins. Come on, it's after three in the morning.

There is a sea-tinged scent of sex in the kitchen, and for a moment George panics, thinking that he and Fred have brought it in; then he goggles, realizing that it is in fact general to the entire room, and he’d really rather not think about it, about his three brothers and his sister and their various… accompaniments. Instead, he puts on a practiced scowl. "Well, well, well, what's all this then?"

"George, my brother," says Fred with a frown that George knows mirrors his own, "looks like a bloody picnic, and the two of us not invited! Shocking."

"Well," Percy says tartly, "you seemed to have visitors. We wouldn't have wanted to disturb your... diversions for the evening."

Bloody hell... Is Percy... winding them up?

Bill snorts, and Fleur titters.

Charlie smirks over Tonks's head and says, "We all seemed to have a bit of trouble with silencing charms this evening. Must’ve canceled each other out."

Percy looks haughty. "Speak for yourselves. I was a model of celibacy and decorum tonight."

"Well," Hermione says, her eyes glistening in a frighteningly Weasley-like manner, "just how many people _did_ I hear snoring in your room just now, Fred? I know you two are loud, but it sounded as if—"

Fred splutters before George can say, "Ginny and Ron have been a bad influence on you, Miss Granger. We're beginning to question your morals. Right, Fred?"

"Too bloody right, George," says Fred. "We'll have to keep an eye on you and our little bro, or you'll start popping out little red-heads in no time..."

Hermione blushes most gratifyingly, but Ginny looks at Fred, then gasps, "Tonks!"

The Auror, who has had her face buried in Charlie's armpit, looks up, shock plain on her face. Her eyes meet Ginny's, and then, in quick succession, Tonks blushes, Ginny blanches, and Tonks's hair begins to go through kaleidoscopic panoply of colors never seen outside an aviary or a Muggle discotheque.

Charlie stares down at his ladyfriend, probably blinded by the flashing locks, certainly looking confused, and says, "What? Tonks, what?"

"Oh, bloody hell, Tonks, I sorry, I shouldn't have said," Ginny moans.

Still red-faced, her hair settling back from electric blue to silky blue-black, Tonks cries, "What kind of time is this to have a bloody _BABY_ , let alone a bloody _**BLACK**_ baby!" Her eyes dark and hard, her resemblance to her eldest aunt makes George's stomach go cold.

Charlie tries to whisper something to her, but she wrenches away from him and starts towards the back yard door.

Harry gets there first, Ginny holding his hand. The two of them smile, but block Tonks's escape route. "It isn't Bellatrix I see when I look at you, Tonks. It's you." He smiles, a smile that makes George sadder than Tonks's tears had. "You, and my godfather."

From the table, Percy clears his throat. "As to this being not being a good time... Well, have you ever wondered why there's a forty-month space between myself and Charlie, when the rest of this lot were pumped out every eighteen to twenty-four months?"

Tonks's expression is a peculiar mix of exasperation and confusion.

"Well," Percy says, as if she's bloody answered, "our mother was an operative of the first Order, you see. And those were the days when... You-Know-Who was on the ascendant."

"Just say his name," Harry mutters.

"Tom," sighs Ginny.

Percy flinches, and then continues. "Mother told me that she and Father worried about bringing another child into such a world, all the more since she was already anxious about Bill and Charlie. But then Father said that it was important to think about after the war, to think for the future. That that was the way truly to defeat.... Vol... Voldemort." Percy glares at Harry and Ginny; Ginny gives the prat a smile.

Charlie looks around the room and says--clearly more for the family's benefit than Tonks's--"You don't have to have the baby, Tonks. No one here feels that you do. And," he says with a very uncharacteristic glare, "I don't bloody care even if they do. You do what you need to do. You don't need to have the baby, and you don't have to marry me, but I would be more happy than I could tell you..."

Tonks puts a finger to Charlie's lips, silencing him. "We'll talk about the, uh, pregnancy thing later, okay? I _do_ care what you think. I just... It's hard enough getting used to talking about this sort of thing with one person, let alone...." She glances around the room, looking supremely uncomfortable until her eyes lock with Harry's. He nods to her, and she smiles for the first time since George and Fred came in.

"Right," Charlie says, and kisses her finger, "Got it."

"Yeah," Tonks says, and suddenly her hair, which was just to her shoulders, tumbles down to the middle of her back, smooth and lustrous.

"Uh, Tonks?"

"Yeah, Charlie?"

"Uh, what about the other thing?"

"The other thing?" Tonks, a gleam in her eye. "The _other_ thing?"

"That's right," says Charlie, and it looks as if he's swallowed one of Hagrid's cakes, his Adam's apple is working so hard. "You know. The other thing. I asked about."

"Oh!" Tonks says in a tone of surprise that no one in the room is buying. "The _other_ thing!"

"Tonks..." pleads Charlie, and it is a sad thing indeed to see a proud member of the House of Weasley reduced to this.

She looks him up and down for a second, then smirks. "Hmmm," she says. "Yeah. Sure. Why not."

Charlie is silent for a moment. "Why not? You mean... yes?"

"Yeah."

After spluttering for a second and goggling at her, Charlie starts to try to say something, but he doesn't get out whatever swotty romantic prattle he was going to spew, because Tonks pulls him into a kiss that gives evidence to her years of hand-to-hand combat training.

There are several sighs and sniffles around the room. George feels... uncertain how to feel. He knows this calls for teasing on a grand scale, but somehow he doesn't have the stomach for it just at the moment. He looks to his twin and sees the same unwonted look of seriousness that surprised George earlier in their old room.

"Well," sighs a breathy Fleur, "Another one! Truly a night for the celebration, _n'est-ce pas_?"

"Another?" grunts George. "What are you on about, Fleur?"

His eldest brother grins and says, "Let's review the bidding, shall we? The amorous couple over there seem to be, uh, engaged?" Without coming up for air, Tonks and Charlie give Bill matching thumbs-up signals. After laughing, Bill continues, "Earlier this evening, Fleur and I decided to get married, as did Ron--where is Ron, by the way?--and Hermione here."

"Nice work, Hermione," teases Fred.

"Actually, Ron asked _me_ ," she answers primly.

"Nice work, Ron!" laughs George. "Didn't know he had it in him!"

"Hey!" calls Harry, but he too is laughing.

"I hope he isn't upset that he didn't get to tell you all," Hermione frets.

"Don't worry, Hermione," Ginny says with a wry smile, "he'll be pleased not to have had to."

Percy clears his throat.

"Oh," Bill says, taking his cue, "And Percy told us he and Miss Clear... Fucking hell. There're going to be a bloody boatload of Mrs. Weasleys around here pretty soon."

"Why do you think I opted for Granger-Weasley?" says Hermione.

"You think per'aps peoples will 'ave a 'ard time telling us apart?" smirks Fleur, and Harry, Ginny and Hermione laugh.

"Anyway," Bill says tickling his intended until she yelps, "Percy and Penny apparently ran off to some Muggle church last year and got married. Beat us all to it. And he's been waiting for an appropriate moment to tell us. And then, of course, our only sister and youngest charge, Miss Ginevra here, has, if I understand the winking and giggling that's been going on, shared intimate relations with young Mr. Potter there for the first time tonight."

" _**BILL**_!" screams Ginny. Harry hides his face in her hair, but not before his complexion matches her hair color.

"So," Bill concludes, turning back to the twins, "do you two have anything you'd like to tell us?"

Fred laughs, "Not bloody likely!"

George grins. "But we can tell there's a _lot_ of planning to do! Stag parties! Hen parties! Girls, we've got these wands..."

Ginny throws a cloth napkin at George, and the entire room bursts into laughter. Charlie was already crying, but soon, so are Bill and Hermione: tears of laughter.

Chuckling, George looks to his brother and is relieved to see a grin on his face, too. When he looks back at the table again, Harry has moved from behind Ginny and is looking around the room.

No longer red-faced, he's clearing his throat, but no one seems to hear him. He looks back at Ginny, but she merely blinks at him. Then he gets down on one knee.

George gives a shrill whistle, silencing the room. Everyone looks around to George, then follows his gaze to the tableau in front of the door.

Ginny looks down at her inamorato, her eyes round in frank terror. "Harry, don't."

"Ginny..." The boy's voice, which has always been low and earnest, is barely audible, even in the stunned silence of the three-in-the-morning Weasley kitchen. "I realize we're both too young to get married _now_. But I've been thinking about what Hermione said, and Percy, and... If not now, when? I have no doubts who I'd like to spend the rest of my life with." He looks down to where her hand was held in both of his. "Even if... that's not a terribly long time."

Fleur, Percy and Hermione put their hands in front of their mouths like three Speak No Evil monkeys. Tonks looks as if someone has just punched her in the stomach.

Harry doesn't seem to have noticed. "Ginny..." He clears his throat. "Ginevra Weasley, would you do me the honor of consenting to become my wife if I survive this war, and of making me..." He looks around the room and smiles that innards-wrenching smile again, "Making me _one_ of the luckiest men on the face of the earth."

George is about to make a remark--very tasteful--about Harry already having gotten lucky that night, but Ginny catches his eye again, making it clear to him that hexes of a very unpleasant sort will be his reward if he doesn't shtum. So he bites his cheeks.

She looks down at the Boy Who Kneeled, and to George's surprise the angry look doesn't soften one iota. "Okay, Harry," she says, "you want to play High Ball? You want to Shoot the bloody Moon? Fine. But before you get my answer, before you see my cards, you have to make a couple of agreements, got it?"

Astonished, Harry nods.

"If you say yes, you're living up to these agreements _no matter_ how I answer you, understand me?"

He nods again, looking worried that he is about to be devoured.

Ginny holds up one dagger-like finger. "One, I will not be shunted off, kept safe or left behind, do you bloody hear me? So, no more little adventures off on your own, or even with Ron and Hermione or Luna and bloody Neville. If you're going to treat me like a woman then I expect to be treated like a bloody grown-up as well. If you go to the bloody loo, I want to go with you. Because if you die and I'm not there, Harry Potter, I'm going to fucking _kill_ you, do you understand?"

Eyes wide behind his glasses, Harry nods again and says, barely audible, "Yes. I agree."

She flicks up a second finger so rigidly that the gesture is hysterically obscene and George is hard pressed to contain the giggles. "Two. If you ask this now, I'm not going to be bloody understanding when you're thirty-five bloody years old and some cute school girl starts batting her eyes at you, paunchy, balding old prat that you will no doubt be. I take this bloody seriously, right? You're the one who asked, yeah? So remember that you are agreeing to forsake all others and all of that bloody crap, and if you fuck around on me, Potter, I'm going to cut your balls off and stuff them down your throat. _Okay?_ "

White as Nearly Headless Nick, Harry nods one more time. "I, uh, agree. I'll hand you the knife. Rusty."

Ginny starts to try to say something, but her outburst seems to have run out of steam. Lower lip trembling, she looks down at Harry, then throws herself on him, knocking him to the ground. Their momentum rolls them up against the table, causing two crab apples to spill to the floor.

The room bursts into applause. Hermione bursts into tears. Again.

"What's all this racket at this time of night?" comes a voice that makes George and Fred both leap out of the doorway, and sets pure silence on the room. Mother Weasley, her hair a Medusa-like corona of distemper, is standing at the entrance, a groggy husband at her elbow.

"Is that tea I smell?" her calmer half mutters and crosses toward the table, apparently taking no notice of the ten astonished faces that are staring up at him and the lady of the house.

"Ginevra Molly Weasley, what are you and Harry doing on the kitchen floor at ten past three in the morning?" Their mother peers around the room, imperious. "When it comes to that, what are the _lot_ of you doing here at this time of night?"

"Well, Mum..." Fred starts and looks to George.

"See, there's a lot to tell you, so you might want to sit..."

_Tap-tap-tap._

"Wazzat?" blears Dad. A Great Horned Owl is tapping at the door's glass. The Weasleys' father stumbles over Harry and Ginny, who seem to be shrinking, humiliated, against the wall, before he finally opens the door.

The huge owl lands on the table, presenting not a parchment letter but a Muggle one on fine linen paper. Two more owls glide in bearing a box and lay it on the counter, where the Weasleys' mother shuffles over to untie the package. "What in the name of Merlin?..."

Blinking sleep from his eyes, her husband opens the envelope and peers at the letter inside. "It's from... Ten Downing Street. Poor Amos Diggory has submitted his resignation, and the Prime Minister has apparently accepted...."

Percy can't see his father's face go white; he mutters, "High time, I say."

Their mother hasn't noticed either, because she squeals in a most undignified manner as the box opens. "ARTHUR!" she shouts. When she turns around, she is holding a lime green bowler.

Slackjawed, the newly appointed Minister for Magic looks up and takes in the stunned faces of his family--a family that has, without his knowing it, added several members this evening. "Well," he says, "what do you know about that?"

Just as he is about to be mobbed by his wife, children and children-in-law-to-be, a voice calls from the hallway.

"Merlin, I'm starving," Ron yawns, then stops, shocked at the evidently excited crowd in the kitchen. Looking around at the faces arrayed before him, then locking eyes with a flushed Hermione, he blinks. "What have I missed?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads-up—if you go straight to Four Weddings & a Funeral... there is a *quite drastic* shift of tone. Just FYI. ;-)


End file.
